"I can't believe I let you drag me here," Levi grumbles as they push through the throngs of people, bumping and shoving and jostling against each other in the cold December night—the last of the year. Someone elbows him and he grunts, nearly losing his grip on Petra's hand. "This place is filled with tourists."
"Well, I didn't grow up here, so let me have the experience, okay?" Petra has to shout to be heard over the noise of the crowd.
"It's fucking freezing."
"Quit being a baby," she says, but she squeezes his hand and turns back to give him a reassuring look, and her cheeks are flushed with excitement, happiness making her eyes sparkle more brightly than the neon lights of Times Square, so he relents and lets her drag him closer.
He's lived in New York City all his life, but he's never gone to the New Year's ball drop in Times Square before—he generally hates people, and standing in a huge crowd of overexcited ones on a chilly winter night has never sounded like a good idea. He's watched it before on TV and found the whole thing pointless—a new year is still just another day in anyone's life, and there are people on the other side of the world who have experienced it already, and people on the other side of the country who have not yet.
But Petra wanted to go, and Levi doesn't know if dating her has turned him into a complete pushover or if she is just that persuasive, because he could be at home right now, sitting in his bedroom where it is warm, connected to the Internet and streaming music, but instead he is outside in subzero temperatures, the freezing air making his eyes sting, surrounded by packs of tourists shuffling and shouting and pushing and standing way too close to him (once again, he generally hates people) as bad music is played.
Petra is with him though, and she seems to be buying into the hype just as much as any other small-town person in the big city, despite having already spent a year here for college. There is pure, unadulterated joy shining in her eyes, etched into the soft lines of her face as she tries to make her way closer to the front of their section, pulling him with her, and Levi has always thought being this excited over the New Year's is stupid but Petra looks so animated, eyes shining, hair gleaming, cheeks and nose red with cold, and there is no way he can ever think her stupid.
There is a stage set up below the Times Tower where the famous New Year's ball resides at the top—a large sphere covered in triangular crystal panels ready to make a much-over-celebrated one-minute descent in less than ten minutes. Levi knows they are lucky to have made it this close to the stage—or to have made it in at all—considering how late they arrived (there were people outside already by the afternoon), but he finds it hard to appreciate something he doesn't want in the first place.
"Does it really matter where we stand?" he mutters, then repeats himself more loudly when his voice gets swallowed up by the crowd. "We can see the fucking ball no matter where we are."
Petra turns to frown at him, but nothing will diminish the light in her eyes tonight. "I swear, Levi, sometimes I feel like I'm the older one," she sighs. She tugs on his arm until he is right behind her, pushed up against her back due to the constantly shifting masses, and presses a quick kiss to his cheek. Her lips are slightly cold and chapped but he can feel warmth tingle across his skin anyway. "Stop complaining, be a good boy, and maybe I'll reward you later, okay?"
Her tone is teasing, almost patronizing, but he can't find it in him to glare at her; he was right, he is a pushover when it comes to her and always will be, and part of him has always known, from the first moment he saw her at her freshman orientation, dressed in bright colors with an even brighter spark in her eyes, that he is a goner.
And what frightens him the most is that he can't bring himself to care.
He is jerked out of his thoughts when he realizes they've finally stopped pushing their way through the crowd; they've somehow reached the front of their section, held back from the other side of the street by metal barricades. Reporters swarm the area not too far in front of them, and some of those inappropriately-dressed-for-the-weather people might be celebrities, but Levi can't be sure because they're not facing him and he doesn't really catch up with the latest trends in popular culture if he can help it.
"I can't believe it's almost midnight already," Petra says, blowing out a breath. It mists in swirls of white in front of her face. "Just"—she checks her watch—"less than six minutes to go now, and it'll be the new year!"
"Yeah," Levi says. "In New York. In Europe, they're all asleep or utterly smashed in 2014 already."
He thinks he literally can't stop comments like these from escaping his mouth, and they're probably 99% of the reason most people tend to give him a wide berth whenever they see him around, but he can't help them; they just appear from nowhere. Petra only rolls her eyes at him though.
"Well, we're not in Europe, are we?"
He has nothing to say to that, and maybe his expression is somewhat baffled, because she snorts and wraps an arm around his waist.
"I know you've never cared about or celebrated the New Year's before, but since we're here, might as well, right?" she says. "I usually think back on the previous year and then make resolutions for the new one. You know what New Year's resolutions are, don't you?"
He is tempted to roll his eyes back at her, but her face is pressed against the side of his neck—her skin is cold—and she can't see him, so he settles for nudging her slightly with his chin. "Yeah, I think I've heard of those before."
"Have you ever made any?"
He recalls all those last nights of the year he spent in front of his computer, or standing in the corner of the living room as his extended family talked and joked and laughed around him, his little cousins running around and screaming and sloshing Coke everywhere. He mostly remembers wishing his father would shut up about how his son had gotten into an Ivy League school, wishing his mother would stop shooting him worried looks across the room, wishing someone would turn the damn TV off because the extreme amount of excitement over the new year he saw there nearly made him nauseous.
And now he is in the midst of one of the biggest New Year's celebrations in the world, and he's actually relatively okay with that.
"No," he says, answering Petra's question, "can't say I have."
"There's a first time for everything," she says, grinning; he can feel the curve of her lips on his skin, her breath tickling his collarbone. "Why don't you try now?"
She falls silent then, probably making reflections of her own, so he doesn't say anything and pulls her closer, resting his cheek on her hair. She lets out a content little sigh and he can feel her shut her eyes, her eyelashes fluttering against his skin.
The past year, he thinks, as the voices of the people around them increase in volume, the numbers ticking away as the time left until midnight decreases. What happened in the past year?
If he were to be honest with himself, the only thing that comes to mind is Petra. A tiny portion of his brain has always known he liked her the moment he saw her on campus in fall 2012, but he didn't fully acknowledge it until early spring this year. And since they've been dating—it hasn't even been a year yet—he realizes she's completely ingrained herself in his life; she's become something he expects to see in the morning, something he expects to be around in the afternoon, something he expects to find with him at night, like the sun or the moon or the blue of the sky.
But she has not always been part of his life, and now that she is, he can't imagine it without her.
She shifts in his arms, leaning her head back to look at him, a smile in her eyes. "Have you made your New Year's resolutions yet?"
Her face is white, her cheeks rosy from the chilly winter air and her hair is slightly messy, having been blown about by the wind. Her lips are dry and the freckles across her nose stand out against her pale skin, but her eyes are sparkling and he thinks she looks so fucking lovely he almost wants to bash his head against a wall for ever thinking such a thing.
He must have been reflecting longer than he thought, because people around them are growing even more restless, some raising their voices and others lowering them to a hush, and when he looks up he realizes why. Giant numbers flash across the screen high above their heads, ticking away the seconds to the new year, as the giant crystal ball slowly starts to descend, flashing with different colors. There's less than a minute left.
"Levi?" Petra prompts, poking him in the side when he doesn't respond.
No matter how much the sappy thought makes him want to hurl, it's true. She is lovely and wonderful and he never wants to leave her, and frankly, the thought scares him—he's not that type of guy at all. He doesn't make commitments, especially not to people.
But Petra seems to be the exception to nearly every rule he's created for himself in the past twenty-two years.
"I already made mine," she says quietly when he still doesn't speak.
He doesn't deserve her, he thinks. He probably can't count on both hands and feet how many shitty comments he made in the past hour alone, yet she is still with him, and if she's not going to leave him, then he will never leave her.
And maybe, just maybe, he could try to reduce the amount of crap that comes out of his mouth.
"I have too," he tells her, and she beams.
"That wasn't too bad, was it? Your first in... how many years?"
He shrugs and she smirks. "Can't remember?"
"Nope."
Voices swell around them, people starting to count along with the numbers on the screen as they drop. "Twenty... nineteen... eighteen... seventeen..."
"I don't care how lame you think this is," Petra says, snuggling in his arms once again. "I think it's awesome that so many people got together to celebrate one night, especially in such a diverse world."
He never thought of it that way. Perhaps she's right.
"... fourteen... fifteen... thirteen..."
Confetti swirls in the air, blowing from the sky and settling on the stage, on newscasters' video cameras, in people's hair. A piece lands on Petra's shoulder and he flicks it off, watches it fall to the ground.
"... ten... nine... eight... seven..."
The chanting increases dramatically in volume in the last ten seconds. An elderly lady wearing a hat branded with one of the event's corporate sponsors raises her hands to the air; a little boy and girl jump around, trying to catch bits of confetti; Levi can almost feel Petra's voice against his throat as she murmurs the numbers too, her eyes turned skyward.
"... six... five... four..."
The crystal ball glows, shimmering and pulsing with light as it nearly disappears down the flagpole, giant billboards obstructing it from view. Maybe if he were taller, he would still be able to see it, but now he can only catch the faintest flashes of its ever-changing color.
"... three... two... one..."
Petra's arms tighten around his waist as if in anticipation.
"Happy New Year!"
It feels like the whole city explodes into cheering as fireworks crackle and pop, streams and streams of confetti shooting through the sky. Four giant golden numbers light up at the bottom of the flagpole, a bright beacon of joy and hope for the new year. As if in contrast to the whooping and screaming and eye-dazzling colors of the festivities, Auld Lang Syne starts playing, a peaceful, almost solemn tune ringing through the air.
Petra finally tears her eyes away from the flashing "2014" to look at him. More confetti lands on her shoulders, in her hair, but he doesn't bother brushing it off this time; her eyes are so very bright, shining amber, gleaming gold, and full of such promise he doesn't have to think about what to do next; he leans forward and presses his lips to hers.
She kisses him back, her arms coming up to encircle his neck; he places his hands on her face and strokes her cheeks with his thumbs. She tastes of joy, of hope, of unbroken promises and new beginnings, and as she tilts her head back to capture more of his mouth, her fingers tangling in his hair, he thinks maybe celebrating the new year isn't so stupid after all.
A/N: This was going to be posted in my collection of Rivetra drabbles and ficlets but it got kind of long, so I'm posting it separately. I haven't actually been to any of these (just saw one on TV when I was like eight) so pardon me if any details are incorrect (feel free to let me know if you catch anything). Happy New Year's, everyone!